Fort Hood Shooting

The question of the day seems to be: was this a political act or did this person snap. We can never know his true motivation, all we can do is to look at the evidence and make up our mind from that. Sometimes there is very little evidence and we really cannot formulate a strong opinion regarding a person's motivation; other times there is a fair deal of information. This time we have a fair deal of information.

First and foremost this was a political act. Shouting "Allah Akbar" and shooting military personnel is a political act. Communicating with radical imams (unless done undercover) certainly shows a particular mindset. In the same way if a white man lynches a black man and can be linked to a KKK recruiter it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that his actions were based out of racial hatred.

Secondly he did snap. It seems that he was conflicted about his role in the US military and his identity as a Muslim. This being the case, if he was a reasonable man, he should have resigned his commission. The fact that he did not -- and let's face it the military is not a place where one accrues riches -- shows that there is much more to the story.

Some people argue that there was no political component to this story that the poor man absorbed so many horror stories from his patients that when it was his turn to go abroad he simply couldn't take it. I don't buy this. He could have resigned his commission and taken a civilian job. Something compelled him to stay and I don't think it was duty to country and corps.